


A Thousand Permutations

by Medie



Category: Highlander: The Series, Torchwood
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Crossover, F/M, Female Character of Color
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-17
Updated: 2011-07-17
Packaged: 2017-10-21 12:21:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/225115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medie/pseuds/Medie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She turns up in the worst places. Occasionally, this is an aggravation that Methos spends days, weeks, and centuries grumbling about as it requires him effecting some sort of grandiose rescue  involving plans which might make the Trojans weep with envy. This is, however, only occasional. Rare even. More often than he will admit, and less often than she pointedly does not point out, it's means she's saving <em>him</em>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Thousand Permutations

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mari4212](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mari4212/gifts).



> Written for my 30 Stories for my Thirtieth Challenge for the prompt Methos/Tosh: He always did like the sweet ones with backbone.

They meet in a time that will have no name, in a place no one will know, among a people that the world will eventually forget.

She's a healer, a wise woman, and he something else entirely. She would say something not all that smart at all.

He makes the mistake of thinking her weak, easily overwhelmed, and the woman who will call herself Tosh has a great time proving him otherwise.

For them, it becomes something of a theme.

-

She turns up in the worst places. Occasionally, this is an aggravation that Methos spends days, weeks, and centuries grumbling about as it requires him effecting some sort of grandiose rescue involving plans which might make the Trojans weep with envy. This is, however, only occasional. Rare even. More often than he will admit, and less often than she pointedly does not point out, it's means she's saving _him_.

He's sure that her pointed silence is a maddeningly effective exercise in reverse psychology. Since she all but invented the field (and so many others, damn the woman and her unending curiosity) that does come as no surprise.

Much like his current situation with the sense of another Immortal and a familiar sound that might be laughter.

"Again?"

Tosh shoves the rubble aside, peering down at him with a slight smile on her face.

"About time," Methos rasps. "What kept you?"

Rolling her eyes, Toshiko holds out her hand. "Saving the people who needed it." She grins as he grabs on and pulls himself up. "People who aren't you."

"I'm touched that you remembered me at all," he says, dusting off his clothes.

She laughs, kissing his cheek. "You should be. I know you after all."

-

"You ever get tired of it?"

Methos raises his head from the soft downy pillow. Sinfully good after weeks beneath the rubble of a war-ravaged city. Tosh sits beside him, glasses that she doesn't really need perched on the edge of her nose, with a book in her hands. "Tired of what?" he asks, tipping the book to take in the Cyrillic letters.

Tosh waves the book in the direction of the window and the smoke on the horizon. Somewhere beyond it, a city is burning.

"Don't you get tired of asking that question?" he asks. "You've been asking it for centuries."

"I've been asking it longer than that." And she has. He's lost count. "And I'll keep on asking it." She closes her book, tossing it on his lap, and gets up to look out at the window. "So little time and they spend it killing each other."

"Of course," Methos says, joining her. Her shoulders are slight beneath his hands, feeling almost frail, and it's easy to see the mistake so many Immortals have made. So many people believing her weak, delicate, and therefore easy prey.

The perfect disguise. It's one of the things she's taught him. His most favourite. "Of course," he says, again, drawing his thoughts back to the present. He kisses that shoulder and it's silky-smooth skin. "They learned it from us after all."

She sighs. "Couldn't we think of something better to teach them?" She hesitates for a second then looks back at him with an adorable frown on her face. "And _don't_ say beer."

Methos matches his pout with one of his own. "I wasn't going to," he says, running fingertips down her arms. "But now that you mention it—ouch!" He pulls back, rubbing the spot where she pinched him. "That was not nice."

"No," she says, pushing him backward with a wicked little leer, "but it is how you like it."

-

"Do you spend all your time tinkering?"

Tosh pushes those useless glasses of hers up, leaving a streak of grease running the length of her cheek, and grins. "I prefer machines to people."

"I remember," Methos says, sitting beside her. "You were as giddy as a schoolgirl during the Industrial Revolution."

"I was not," Tosh says, huffy. "Hand me that wrench."

He does, with a dryly added, "Giddy."

It's his own fault, then, that she promptly smacks him in the arm with it. After this long, it isn't as though he didn't see it coming. Still, it's her own that she doesn't see his response either.

Though, judging by the way she squeals with laughter, grinding against him in a fashion that makes him hiss, there's every chance that she _did_.

-

"Aliens in the Thames." Putting down his glass, Methos looks at the laughing Toshiko. "Have you gone mad?"

"Not watched telly in a while, I take it?" She steals the drink before he can pick it up again, kicking off her shoes and running one foot up his pants leg. He shivers with the lazy intent of it and promises himself that, some day, he won't be so easily played. "Death himself missed an attempted invasion."

Her foot forgoes his pants to slip beneath his thighs, rubbing deliberately. Methos considers commenting, but if he does then she'll stop. "Which you apparently had well in hand."

"Not particularly," Tosh's toes wiggle against him and he bites back a shout. A corner booth, yes, but _really now_. "There was another alien—The Doctor—he handled the most of it." She grins, eyes bright with excitement, and this time Methos does groan when those delightful little toes move. "I think you might like him."

"And why's that?" Methos asks and tips his head back, enjoying the situation immensely. At least, he does until he hears the sound of paper unfolding and curiosity gets the better of him.

Tosh smooths the paper flat, pushing it across the table to him. "He had one of these."

It's a device, sonic something or other, and the design is an approximation at best. Despite that, it's one of the most beautiful things he's ever seen and he nearly forgets the sensations building in his body in favour of the the schematics. "You're going to have a ball, aren't you?"

She presses down just enough and he yelps, coming in his pants. "I'm not the only one."

-

"There's an organization," Toshiko says, radiant beneath the afternoon sun, "I think you've heard of it." She traces a drop of condensation down his beer bottle, catching it with her finger. "Torchwood."

Methos tips the bottle, letting the cool liquid spill out on her abdomen, chasing after it with his tongue. "Sounds familiar."

"They have a velociraptor," she says, the words catching when he teases his tongue against her navel. "And a rip in space and time."

He puts the beer aside, letting himself slide over her. "Sounds utterly delightful."

"Yes, it does, doesn't it?"

-

It's her beneath the rubble this time, figuratively of course, and when he leans over her in the morgue, she opens her eyes and grins at him in delight.

"Worth it?" he asks.

She pulls him down for a kiss. " _Absolutely_."


End file.
